Chrono Trigger DS review

Chrono Trigger is not unlike most of Square's output from their 'golden era': an RPG with turn-based battles, a spiky-haired mute protagonist and lavish production values. But what is most remarkable about it is how much it managed to get 'right', in ways that even now seem to elude its makers. Your three controllable characters are always on-screen, follow-the-leader style. There are no random battles; they happen when you make contact with an enemy on the screen, or at scripted points where you're ambushed, and fights happen there and then, with very brief victory messages before you're immediately in control again. This encourages exploration without fear of being worn down or interrupted. On the world map, there are no battles at all; you can wander completely unhindered - a breath of fresh air in this genre!Square seemingly wanted to make an inviting game. Levelling up and learning new spells (techs) happens quite regularly. The system is simplified so that each character has one line of progression, without customisation, but your choice of team members determines which combination attacks you have access to, encouraging a bit of experimentation. Your HP and MP are capped much lower than usual, and indeed the game can be completed in half the time of most Final Fantasy titles. What Chrono Trigger manages to do is cut out the filler and deliver one of Square's most concise and varied RPGs ever.The story is intriguingly good, too. You start the game in the 'present' year of 1000AD, at the kingdom of Guardia's millennial fair. It isn't long before an accident with a teleport device sends you back in time 400 years, and you find yourself on a mission to restore the timeline. This introduction to the game then leads to the shocking discovery that the world will brought to ruin a thousand years in the future by an extra-terrestrial parasitic lifeform called Lavos, who fell to Earth in prehistoric times and was summoned forth in the middle-ages by a dark mage who came from-... well, that would be telling. Needless to say, you'll be zipping back and forth across the timeline to piece together the puzzle, meeting new companions in each era. It's a totally linear storyline, but one that is cleverly constructed and constrained in just the right ways to make it seem like you're choosing your own path.Yet, the final path is freely yours to take when you wish. Not constrained by the normal flow of time, you can take on the game's final boss when you want to (even if you're realistically unable), and this can affect the game's endings, of which there are many. From the end, you can continue back from the same point in the story, or restart it with all your stats in place - a novel feature in a game already brimming with ideas. In terms of the eras you can visit, there are only a handful, but each world map is significantly different to provide enough variety. What's more, towards the end of the game, there are some absolutely ingenious uses of the time-travel mechanic that see you making changes in the past to affect the future, and checking back on areas consistent between them. These are surprisingly good for a game today, never mind one that came out nearly fifteen years ago.Chrono Trigger does start to show its age a little with graphics and animation that aren't challenging the DS to any degree. That said, it was always one of the better looking SNES games; its use of colour is fantastic - reds, yellows and greens plentifully adorn the character sprites without ever looking garish, and the change of palettes to reflect each time period is very effective. The audio, too, does a fantastic job of creating atmosphere, particularly in the windy and desolate future period. The conversion to DS is very faithful; few would notice any technical changes from the original, unless compared side by side.So what has been added here? First of all, the game is now split across two screens instead of just one. Most of the time the lower screen is simply a map of the area, which is quite useful. You can also point to where you want to walk and select menu shortcuts with the stylus. In battle, the top screen is now less cluttered, as your actions and stats are all on the touchscreen. This does split attention somewhat and can make the action hard to follow. There is an option to keep everything on one screen as it was in the original, although it does make everything a bit cramped. Text size could be a little bigger too.The extra video sequences made for the PS1 version return here, compression artefacts and all, cropping up at key points in the game. These anime style movies are nice to watch, but they break the game's consistency, depicting events that the game shows you anyway, in a completely different style that makes Crono look like a wrestler on steroids, or a Dragonball-Z reject. Thankfully, these can be switched off. The game's English localisation has been redone, some items and techs renamed to make a bit more sense, and some dialogue adjusted, but it's nothing drastic.The biggest additions here are the extra areas. First, there is the battle arena, which exists 'outside of time'. You raise a fighting monster by sending it off to train and then enter it in battles when you return. Fights are automated, although you can throw your monster helpful items to get them through. This little distraction is hardly engaging and needs serious attention to see any results. There is a new area called the Lost Sanctum that exists in two time periods and is inhabited by 'reptite' villagers who give you missions. There are some good new uses of time travel in these, but they are ultimately very, very tedious fetch quests. Finally, some new dimensional vortices appear after completing the game, which open up a new piece of the storyline. All of these re-use existing game assets and feel very tacked-on, as if Square thought the main game lacked sufficient 'content'.The worst you can say about the extras is that they're inconsistent with the rest of the game, but you can mostly ignore them. They by no means make this the 'definitive' version, yet it is still a fantastic game regardless. It gets better as it goes, and perhaps even better with age, and still puts most other RPGs to shame. If you've not imported (or emulated) this before now, don't miss it.